DfT Will Fail to Meet its 2025 Active Travel Objectives – NAO

The Department for Transport (DfT) is set to fail to meet its 2025 objectives for active travel, according to a new report by the National Audit Office (NAO).

Progress on Objectives

The NAO looked at the period since 2017, when the first Cycling & Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS) was published. It assessed progress on these four specific objectives:

• increase percentage of short trips in towns and cities walked or cycled from 41% in 2019 to 46% in 2025 and 50% in 2030
• increase walking activity to 365 stages per person per year by 2025
• double cycling from 0.8 billion stages in 2013 to 1.6 billion stages in 2025
• increase the percentage of children 5 to 10 years old who usually walk to school from 49% in 2014 to 55% in 2025

On progress towards these objectives, Head of the NAO Gareth Davies said:

‘Active travel schemes have the potential to deliver significant health and environmental benefits. However the DfT knows little about what has been achieved through its past spending and is not on track to achieve most of its objectives’.

gareth davies, head of the nao

The report says that the DfT has not been able to influence local delivery of schemes consistently, and this has led to ‘patchy delivery’. As a result the 2025 objectives are unlikely to be achieved.

Summary Report

The Summary Report identifies some key facts about the DfT’s spending and actions:

• the DfT spent £2.6 billion on active travel interventions between 2016 and 2021
• it estimates a BCR of 4.3:1
• it does not yet know if the schemes delivered by councils are of good enough quality
• key barriers include poor-quality infrastructure, inconsistent active travel provision in new developments, limited capacity and skills in local authorities, and public concerns around cycle safety

Councils’ Capability

56% of councils are rated as having low capability and ambition to deliver active travel schemes. That is combined with this:

‘Successful delivery of active travel interventions relies on work undertaken by local authorities. Most central government funding for active travel goes to local authorities who decide on the best mix of interventions to achieve their objectives.’

para 5 of the nao summary report

Relying on councils that don’t have the skills or commitment to build active travel schemes is a recipe for failure. This is reflected in para 15 of the Summary Report, which reiterates that the DfT does not yet know if the schemes delivered by local authorities have been of good enough quality.

This assumes that councils have actually used their funding to build schemes at all, which is largely not true of North Yorkshire.

Tracking the Benefits of Schemes

The NAO says that the DfT does not have a plan in place to track the benefits from active travel investments. The DfT is not measuring the contribution the schemes make to decarbonisation.

Progress

Progress to date suggests the DfT will not achieve three of its 2025 objectives, and the fourth is uncertain. The latest survey data (from 2021) show little progress against objectives.

In relation to the three objectives that are off track:

‘…levels of activity are lower than they were when the first CWIS was published in 2017…[I]n 2022 DfT undertook modelling to assess the likelihood of meeting its 2025 objectives and found that these were unlikely to be met…’

para 12 of the nao summary report

The Need for Stable Funding

Local authorities say they need longer-term stable funding, and money to maintain infrastructure after it is built (para 20). The NAO recommends a more stable funding environment.

Active Travel England

Most of the positives in the NAO report relate to Active Travel England (ATE). It says ATE:

• is investing in data and analysis to improve the evidence-base for decisions on active travel. This work is at a very early stage
• is taking steps to improve compliance with national guidance through inspections of DfT-funded schemes, and schemes funded by wider government
• now has a statutory consultee role in the planning system, and will review its thresholds after a year
• is taking steps to improve local authorities’ capability

‘Active Travel England has the potential to be a catalyst for increasing walking, wheeling and cycling…[and was established]…to address long standing issues relating to the standard of infrastructure…[It] has made good early progress and is well-placed to address many of the issues that can lead to poor quality active travel schemes.

Maintaining this early momentum from the set-up of ATE will be important to securing benefits for transport, health and the environment and achieving value for money from government’s investment in active travel.’

para 22 of the nao summary report